


the swordsman, the admiral, and the prince

by fourshoesfrank



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Coming Out, Gen, Growing Up, Nonbinary Character, Trans Character, gender is messy!, naming yourself, nonbinary piandao, three bros chillin in the hot tub five feet apart cuz they're not gay, top surgery, trans iroh, trans jeong jeong, trans piandao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:09:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27159109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourshoesfrank/pseuds/fourshoesfrank
Summary: Piandao, Jeong-Jeong, and Iroh's relationships with gender
Relationships: Iroh & Jeong Jeong (Avatar), Piandao & Iroh, Piandao & Jeong Jeong
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	the swordsman, the admiral, and the prince

**Author's Note:**

> i know the fire nation is mainly based off of japanese culture, but i couldn't find a japanese equivalent to nüshu (secret women's alphabet used in southern hunan)

Long before Azula and her posse of three ever entered the halls of the Fire Nation's Royal Palace, a different trio of girls walked those halls. They played games in the garden, sparred together in the courtyard, and attended courtly gatherings as a group, an inseparable unit. Any one girl was seldom seen without the other two around her. 

  
The three girls went to Ember Island for the Summer Solstice festival, and only two came back. The princess and the admiral's daughter returned to the palace accompanied by a tall, dark-skinned swordsman, so committed to his craft that he had taken the name of his preferred weapon. 

  
'Swords _man'_ as an epithet didn't quite fit, but he liked it much better than 'court lady'. 

  
After this, little else changed. The two girls and the swordsman maintained their close friendship, although the swordsman's rooms were moved to the male wing and he began training with the guards instead of watching them from the sheltering shade of a gazebo. 

  
And then there were two. 

  
The younger of the two girls, the admiral's daughter, did not enjoy thinking about what had brought the swordsman to the palace. She disliked introspection, probing her soul for truths that would only cause trouble and confusion. But as her life built to a crescendo of court drama and beauty standards and etiquette lessons, she found it impossible to ignore the small grains of sandy discontent in oyster of her mind. 

  
The admiral's daughter departed for her family's summer home, and never returned. Several weeks later, a mustachioed young soldier moved into the empty rooms next to those of the swordsman, and from there life went on. 

  
For a long time, it stayed this way. The admiral's son climbed the ranks to become an admiral himself, the swordsman began teaching his craft after having completed his required years of service, and the princess continued her dutiful existence as the Fire Lord's eldest child. Her younger brother ranged farther and farther from the Fire Nation quelling rebellions in the Earth Kingdom's coastal cities, while the princess handled matters of intranational disputes and occasionally became involved in some court drama. It was all fairly routine, and it had been many years since a new member joined their trio. 

  
The royal family gained two princes shortly after the princess gave birth to her first child. There was no way to gloss over this one; no way to dress the issue up in manly clothes and hope no one noticed its wide hips or small bust. The princess was now a prince, and the entire nation knew it. Luckily, the royal family was given a bit more leeway in these matters than, say, families of swordsmen or admirals. 

  
The three men kept in touch throughout their lives, even after the swordsman and the admiral moved out of the palace. To any male servant casually glancing over their letters, the exchanges would seem warm, but detached, like conversation at a dinner party. However, an educated female servant who paid attention to the fanciful patterns outlining each scroll would find that the three men had deep, emotional conversations via written correspondence just as if they were still ten-year-olds sharing a powder room. 

  
The letters stopped for a time, while the prince sailed with his exiled nephew, the admiral deserted the army, and the swordsman continued to train students in the ways of the blade. Everyone was too busy to write. It was fine; they had grown used to long periods of silence as children, when their differing stations in society sometimes kept them apart. 

  
Then the Avatar returned, and the three men each encountered him in their own time before the four of them reunited outside the walls of Ba Sing Se. Avatar, prince, admiral, and swordsman each did their part to break the Fire Nation's hold on the city, and succeeded.

  
They won. Now they could relax for one day. 

-

"Jeong-Jeong! Come join us, while the water's still hot."

  
Piandao lifted his hand above the water and waved at his friend in a 'hurry up' gesture, not unlike the one he used to make as a child to tell the other two to get ready for the beach on Ember Island. Jeong-Jeong smiled to himself (a rare occurrence these days, but being with his old friends made it more frequent) and walked over to the large pool that Piandao beckoned to him from. 

  
Piandao leaned against the side and grinned as Jeong-Jeong approached. "Be careful getting in," he warned, "I think a wave too big could push our friend here over in a heartbeat."

  
"You are mistaken," came Iroh's rebuttal from the other end of the oval pool. He was floating on his back, his face turned up to the sky with a smile on it that spoke of a bliss Jeong-Jeong could only dream of experiencing. He had always envied Iroh's ability to find joy in the small things in life. 

  
Jeong-Jeong stuck his foot into the water to test its temperature. Unsurprisingly, Iroh was keeping the water hot enough to keep the skin tender, but not hot enough to burn any non-firebender who might decide to join them. Firebending for pleasure rankled Jeong-Jeong's sensibilities a bit, but this was Iroh. He was one of the few firebenders Jeong-Jeong still trusted with his life. 

  
He removed his outer garments and stepped over the wall of rocks separating the pool from the earth around it. He left his head above the water, only because he didn't foresee himself having the energy to comb out his wet hair later that day. 

  
He looked over at Piandao, who had no such qualms whatsoever. The man's hair was soaked, shining like volcanic glass in the late afternoon sunlight. He had probably dunked himself when he first got in, to remove the dust that accumulated after a day walking through the newly liberated Ba Sing Se. The rubble from battle had yet to settle completely; chunks of rock were still falling periodically and kicking up huge clouds of gravel and sand. 

  
Piandao seemed to sense Jeong-Jeong's train of thought as he began twisting his hair into a loose knot atop his head, using a metal stake from some nearby failed tent as a hairpin. As he lifted his arms over his head, Jeong-Jeong caught a glimpse of his man-scars, two long, faded lines across the line of his pectorals. They blended into the patchwork of dueling scars that crisscrossed his torso; in order to find them, any observer would have to know what to look for. 

  
Jeong-Jeong's own scars were a bit more obvious, being the only blade-scars on his torso. They were surrounded by small burn marks, both from firebenders and from natural fire, and they were the only true lines. Anyone who looked at Jeong-Jeong in the proper lighting would know what they were. 

  
At the other end of the pool, Iroh floated with his bare, unmarked chest turned up facing the sky. He had never wanted to remove his breasts; had simply never felt the need. At first, he'd needed them to nurse his son, but even after Lu Ten was weaned Iroh still hadn't done anything about them. He didn't want to. A simple reason, benefitting a man with a simple philosophy of manhood: honesty and kindness. 

  
The three of them sat in the water, not speaking, just enjoying each other's company. They were together, they were still friends, and later they would all do their part to restore balance to the world. But for now, they were just three old men, relaxing, together. Friendship was a wonderful thing. 

**Author's Note:**

> donate to ppl's top surgery funds uhhhh trans dudes we r cool thats it
> 
> -
> 
> would love getting feedback esp from trans people because we r cool thank u ❤️


End file.
